Touch ‘em All

Well, since it has been so long since an update, I may as well go ahead and post a special season premiere episode today. I say today rather loosely, since I typically start a post one day only to finish it the following week. Oh well, here goes.

Life has gotten incredibly busy. I feel that I have generally been pretty busy here in Washington, D.C., but I am now feeling that everything has accelerated. There are many reasons for this. Between striving to kick ass at work, actually applying myself to my grad school studies, Freemasons, NYLF, my awesome girlfriend, and trying to still have some fun; it would be safe to say that I suffer from time constraints every now and again. The problem with all this is that my life becomes something akin to the balloon theory when speaking of the illicit drug trade. You squeeze one side only to have it bulge out somewhere else. Apparently, I have yet to master the art of time management. Whenever I feel like I am rocking the house in one place, I come to realize that I am slacking in another. It’s very discouraging sometimes. At time when I feel I am getting the hang of everything, I somehow learn that not everything is in balance. Balance. To me balance is an essential aspect of, well, (forgive the Eagles reference) “taking it to the limit”.

Either way, this year has been great so far. My work has been going very well. I have a new boss that has been a much greater mentor and reference in 6 weeks than my previous boss was in 9 months. I think (and hope) that I have finally bought into the idea that I will be required to make sacrifices in order to get ahead. I have come to realize that I certainly should have spent more energy on my studies in undergrad. It’s tougher than I thought to come from Ole Miss with a mediocre academic record and make it here. Everyone here has a degree, many of them with master’s degrees. The bar is set pretty high here in our nation’s capitol. So now, a couple years after leaving Ole Miss, I am endeavoring to atone for some of my past sins concerning schoolwork. For the first time in my life, I am actually spending more than cursory concern towards my academics. I actually bought the books for this semester, and what’s more is that I am actually actively reading them. It’s amazing how much more you get out of class when you do the reading and then pay attention (most of the time) in class. I have the utmost confidence and faith in my abilities, but it would have been nice starting from a place with more solid footing so to speak.

D.C. has been an interesting place these days. The inauguration was incredible. The city was electric and the atmosphere was like that of Mardi Gras in NOLA.

Continued March 5th.

Back to the inauguration. Jacqueline and I were unable to get to work since the whole city was shut down for the most part. We got up and had a nice breakfast, and then watched the festivities on television that morning. Once it got to be about 11:00am, we jogged down to the National Mall, watched the inaugural address, jogged home and watched the rest of the day on the news. For all those suckers who got up at 4:00am and froze their asses off all day long, it would have sucked to have been you. I left the house at 11:00, still made it down to where I could see a Jumbotron (trust me, 98% of the crowd had the same view that I did) and still was present for a moment which will go down as a keystone in our nation’s history, and got back home. The only differences were that I was 4 miles in better shape and a good deal warmer, and all of this was accomplished in only 90 minutes. Kudos to everyone who realized the moment for what it was. Our President was right though in making sure to point out the difficulties that we will face in the coming years. What this great nation needs is something to work for; some inspiration. JFK said in1961 that we would put a man on the moon in less than 10 years. At that point, we had never even put a man into orbit. In less than 10 years, the United States put a fucking man on the moon which was something that all generations of humans have dreamed about since our cerebral cortexes were evolved enough to allow for conscious thought.

I am going to jump around quite a bit, a lot has happened since my last entry and I guess I have a lot on my mind as well. Bear with me.

For this section, I have some minor book grievances to air out, plus a Subway shout-out. These aren’t necessarily new items, just a couple things that have been bothering me lately.

Harry Potter. J.K. Rowling is a huge pussy. She could have slammed the door shut with absolute authority on what will go down as one of the greatest literary works of our time. Her books inspired millions to read and charged the imaginations of both children and adults all over the world. She could have ended her story in a way that would have been a coronation for Harry being one of the greatest tragic heroes of all time. It could have been epic. It could have been legendary. Instead, she sold out. She is dead to me.

Romans. The Rise and Fall of the Roman Empire by Edward Gibbon is too damn long and much too dry to ever conceivably read in its unabridged fashion. Seriously, I know he wrote it in the 18th Century, but please, how much time do you really have to have to write something like that, much less read it. Gibbon 1, Reeves 0.

Twilight. In another example of the whole Man:Mars –Woman:Venus thing, the great majority of the women that have read the books and seen the movie prefer the books. The guys tend to prefer the movie. Why? The movie cuts out all the boring romantic bullshit. Don’t get me wrong, I like romance just fine, it’s one of the joys of life; but when I have other shit to do, reading 100 pages worth of it just doesn’t get me going.

Five Dollar Footlongs. Quite possibly the best thing since crack.

Alright now, on to this years goals and aspirations.

Run a 10K in 40 minutes or less: Got injured last year and could not train adequately for this. Looking good so far this year.

Read 40 books. This is the year. I can feel it.
Begin saving in earnest. Have been pretty lazy about this. Once again, this is the year.

Naval Lodge representative to Allianza. It should be a tremendous help to my Spanish and to my understanding of Freemasonry by attending this lodge once a month.

Promotion. This one may be difficult given the economic circumstances.

Weekly music practice. I will never learn to play piano without practice. I have to make some progress this year.

Learn to draw. I always wanted to know how to draw. I have found I can teach myself just about anything, so here goes.

Write the book. I know for an absolute fact that my stupid stories will never be published. That being said, it never hurts to put it all down.

So it’s now well into the afternoon. Another long day and evening upcoming. No rest for the wicked. Looking forward to the weekend. Looking forward to getting some rest.

Live triumphantly.